The Free Press
MANKATO — Blue Earth County’s 2023 Outstanding Veteran was in Belgium last week, hobnobbing with royalty, Gen. George Patton’s granddaughter and Hollywood actors.
Although he’s a very busy man, Dennis Boldt made it back to Mankato in time to spend his 100th birthday as well as the holidays with his family.
This year the World War II veteran who becomes a centenarian on Wednesday also traveled to a Vikings-49ers football game. Boldt was videotaped while being honored for his military service in the European Theater.
“Dad’s become famous,” said his eldest daughter, Pat Martinson, of Texas, who is in Mankato for the celebration.
During Boldt’s recent trip to Belgium, he participated in the 80th anniversary commemoration of the Battle of the Bulge. He also joined Belgium’s King Philippe and Queen Mathilde for a balcony appearance in a town once occupied by Nazis.
Apparently, all the attention has not gone to Boldt’s head. The native of Delft, Minnesota, continues to remain true to his rural Minnesota roots, according to a news photographer.
“I rarely have had the honor and privilege — during a 40-year-long international career in photojournalism — to meet such a great and humble man like Dennis Boldt, who I followed during several events marking the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge,” Luxemborg native Jean-Claude Ernst wrote in an email to The Free Press.
“Before departing, he thanked me for photographing him during the ‘great events.’ I replied ‘Sir, the great events happened 80 years ago, not now — and you and your fellow soldiers are the only ones who deserve to be thanked for what you have then done for us.’”
Boldt also made a separate trip to Europe early this summer. While he was at commemorative ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day, he shook hands and talked with American actor Tom Hanks.
In 2023, when Boldt was interviewed by The Free Press about his military service, he’d downplayed the fact that he’d fought on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944.
Like many other soldiers who saw action, Boldt said he adjusted fairly well to a return to civilian life. He married, had children and worked as a locksmith.